OK so I now have a better understanding of a cloud server in terms of the hardware being scalable and meeting any new demands on a website.

But what about the software/OS side of things? Generally I prefer to do a clean install when a new OS comes out (well for Windows I am not very familiar with upgrading on linux) as an upgrade sometimes leaves behind things from the old OS. Will OS's be developed so that they can be upgraded better for cloud servers?

The beauty of cloud servers is that you can load up a new server and migrate on the fly.

Let's say you're running Windows Server 2008 on one of your cloud servers and you want to upgrade it to Windows Server 2012 a few years down the line... you bring up another box running 2012 and migrate all of the data over in a matter of minutes.

I don't think that OS makers as a whole are going to worry about building an OS specifically for the cloud (right now), with the exception of some Linux models. I certainly don't see Microsoft doing this anytime soon, but they could surprise us all... but Microsoft Azure is where they're pushing for cloud.

I personally use CentOS, and updating isn't that big of an issue... but I have yet to need to jump an entire build number, like 4.9 to 5.0.

Thanks for you reply - and yes you are right the data could be migrated across quite easily - but you would still need to reinstall your programs, apply any custom settings etc.

Thanks for you reply - and yes you are right the data could be migrated across quite easily - but you would still need to reinstall your programs, apply any custom settings etc.

You can always create a system image after you do your base installation and configuration. VPS.NET has pre-built images with cPanel installed for an example.

Yes an image is a good idea but if you are switching to a new OS the image will have the old OS! Plus updates may have come out for many programs over the time since the image so they would be old versions

generally speaking, OS's do not even know they are installed in a cloud environment as the hypervisor abstracts the underlying layers from the OS. the OS believes it is running directly on the hardware, even though all the hardware is virtual. i believe the future versions of most OS's will begin including code that optimizes its use in a cloud environment. but for now, the optimizations are built into the CPU...such as intel's vt technology

Hi There,

We are now testing CloudLinux (cloudlinux.com/solutions/). It runs only on a stand-alone servers, but I think that they are very close as a concept to become at some point a Cloud OS.

Hi There,

We are now testing CloudLinux (cloudlinux.com/solutions/). It runs only on a stand-alone servers, but I think that they are very close as a concept to become at some point a Cloud OS.

How you finding it?

It is good. It has a scheduler which allows the host to set limits on CPU time per user basis. But we still need some time to make some conclusions on our own. You'd ask me this question within 30 days. I have talked to a few friends who run hosting companies and they are happy with it, but I would post our own reference within a month.

It is good. It has a scheduler which allows the host to set limits on CPU time per user basis. But we still need some time to make some conclusions on our own. You'd ask me this question within 30 days. I have talked to a few friends who run hosting companies and they are happy with it, but I would post our own reference within a month.

the per user basis sounds interesting... So i assume you can have different cpu limits based upon client usage?

Good question. As far as I understand the host can set a limit on CPU usage per user, but I should check if it could be different for different users (As you can assume I'm not in system administration or system engineering so I should go check that).

Good question. As far as I understand the host can set a limit on CPU usage per user, but I should check if it could be different for different users (As you can assume I'm not in system administration or system engineering so I should go check that).

It could kick butt if it can work like that...

You can set different CPU limits on per user bases. You can do it like this:
# lvectl --set --ve 650 --cpu 15

Which would basically set the CPU limit for user with id 650 (id from /etc/passwd file) to 15% of all CPU resources on the server.
This can be executed at any moment. The effect is immediate.

You can set different CPU limits on per user bases. You can do it like this:
# lvectl --set --ve 650 --cpu 15

Which would basically set the CPU limit for user with id 650 (id from /etc/passwd file) to 15% of all CPU resources on the server.
This can be executed at any moment. The effect is immediate.

Fantastic :)

As it's been mentioned the whole purpose of the "cloud" is to provide the scalability and reliability that you need. So unless your developing your own cloud solution you probably won't need to worry about the OS etc. A "cloud" friendly host will be able to take any typical website and convert that into a HA and LB solution creating a 100% uptime solution up to your actual application layer. As such if you application is currently taking use of IIS 7.5 features and IIS 8 is released and you want those features the host should be able to "move" your solution easily thus taking out any concern of the core OS and how it is managed.

Hopefully that makes sense. The basic point is unless your building the "cloud" environment there is no need to worry about the infrastructure of the host in question rather just the "environment" in which it is hosted aka Windows or Linux and variations of that software.